90,000 Texans want to secede, trolls immediately mess with Texas

Democracy in its rawest form comes to whitehouse.gov.

Voters from nearly every US state have taken to the Obama administration's online petition site with a simple request: "Peacefully grant the State of [STATE NAME] to withdraw from the United States of America and create its own NEW government."

Many of these petitions have only a few thousand supporters (or, to put it another way, many of these petitions have a few thousand supporters?). But some have far more. The petition for the state of Texas has garnered 89,540 signatures in four days—far more than the 25,000 needed to secure an official response from the Obama administration.

Here's the Texas petition in full:

The US continues to suffer economic difficulties stemming from the federal government's neglect to reform domestic and foreign spending. The citizens of the US suffer from blatant abuses of their rights such as the NDAA, the TSA, etc. Given that the state of Texas maintains a balanced budget and is the 15th largest economy in the world, it is practically feasible for Texas to withdraw from the union, and to do so would protect it's citizens' standard of living and re-secure their rights and liberties in accordance with the original ideas and beliefs of our founding fathers which are no longer being reflected by the federal government.

Few conservative leaders have endorsed the idea. Even the fiery Erick Erickson took to his RedState.com today to tell his angrier readers that "we here at RedState are American citizens. We have no plans to secede from the union. If you do, good luck with that, but this is not the place for you."

Of course, because this is the Internet and because these petitions are user-generated content, the secessionists are now being trolled mercilessly by counter-petitioners.

"Strip the Citizenship from Everyone who Signed a Petition to Secede and Exile Them," reads one new petition which attracted 4,100 signatures in 24 hours. "Deport Everyone That Signed A Petition To Withdraw Their State From The United States Of America," reads another.

Counter-trolling the secessionists.

Others are more creative, such as "Peacefully grant the city of Austin Texas to withdraw from the state of Texas & remain part of the United States." The petition notes that the city "continues to suffer difficulties stemming from the lack of civil, religious, and political freedoms imposed upon the city by less liberally minded Texans." It also requests permission "to annex Dublin Texas, Lockhart Texas, & Shiner Texas."

The Internet sets the barrier to public participation so low ("just click here!") that such petitions are now simple to draft and to "sign." (Exhibit one: "have the President to attend a Fark.com party. If scheduling does not permit, at least have a beer with Drew Curtis.") But critics routinely assail this sort of online activism as being too easy, noting that it takes so little commitment—no time or money or even a stamp are needed—that it's hard to read too much into the results.

Why would it? The population of Texas is close to 26 million. So what, .35% want secession? If they're so rootin' tootin' mad, let them pack their bags and get the fuck out (hope the door doesn't smack them in the ass on the way out). The other 99.65% of the population shouldn't be forced into something they don't want.

This is as silly as the liberals who wanted to move to Canada (or wherever) after the 2004 election.

However, it is somewhat ironic that the liberals were talking about taking personal responsibility for their own political happiness, while Texan conservatives are asking Obama's government to solve the problem for them.

Can I vote to let Texas secede? If so, none of the Bushes would be able to run for President again. That would be pretty cool.

Edit: This is obviously a troll post, but it's the first thing that popped into my head when I read this and I laughed

Not only that but then the US would have a great foreign country to get it's oil from!.

(yeah same thing )

I certainly want to sign everyone of those petitions if I can just to poke holes at the system. I'm all for voicing legitimate opinion but if these people don't have to be residents they simply aren't legitimate regardless of whether they actually are residents. That said it feels like kids on a playground. Some kid they don't like takes over so these kids pout and go home and play on the Xbox.

Though the entire idea of this happening is interesting. Very curious how the government would split things like the military etc with these governments no longer a part of them.

I wonder if anyone do the calculation before: does the red states receive more (or less) federal funding than the blue states?

Typically, the red states get more federal money than they pay in via taxes, and the reverse is typically true of blue states. But according to this old (the data's from the middle of the last decade) chart, Texas is one of the exceptions.

Conservative Texans so often forget that there are a lot of non-conservatives who live in Texas. And they exercise their 2nd Amendment rights too...

I'm Texas and tend to vote conservative and I think this is just dumb. (However I am in Austin.)Plus those that think that US would ever let this happen are clueless. With NASA so large in Houston and Lockheed building the JSF in Fort Worth (plus I'm sure tons of other projects around the state), there's no way the federal government would ever approve the idea of Texas seceding anyway.

Also, I'd just like to point out that 90,000 people account for just 0.35% of the population as of 2011. It may be a lot of people, but put in that context it's an amount we can just ignore.

Let's take one of the larger national parks, fortify it's borders and make it a sovereign nation to which these malcontents can renounce their US citizenship and move to. We can even pay them some small amount so they can help jumpstart their new nation's economy.

Then we use our satellites and drones, etc. to monitor the activities of the citizenship of said nation and make the video feeds available to the rest of the population via subscription.

I can imagine some of the more entertaining footage would be of inhabitants at the border trying to get back into the US after only a few weeks there.

I wonder if anyone do the calculation before: does the red states receive more (or less) federal funding than the blue states?

If you're doing the calculation as "dollars received versus dollars taxed" the answer is "a hell of a lot more". Red states tend to be poor and without big business centers, so they don't send much in taxes, and they tend to be more rural, and building roads in rural states necessarily means you're spending more money per person than building roads in highly populated states--you've still gotta cover the same miles. Texas is one of the few exceptions to the rule: it has enough cities that it is nearly self-sufficient. On the flip side, New Mexico is a blue state that is heavily subsidized.

I wonder if anyone do the calculation before: does the red states receive more (or less) federal funding than the blue states?

In general red states receive more funding then blue states measuring by spending per cap or by amount of federal spending per tax dollar sent. There are some exceptions like NM and VA that have large federal presence (NM military and research centers and VA a lot of the federal government is based there). The states that receive the least in general are blue well most are deep blue.

The article makes a very adept point in all of this: A point and click petition offers little value and shouldn't amount to much in terms of showing ones true passion towards an issue. An official response of any kind, it would seem, might be a bit of an overblown reaction.

I think I've found a solution, though.

Set up a polling place. Have a rope tied to the ceiling, and at the top of the rope, a bell. Ring the bell, and you cast a vote for seceding.

Now, with Texas being one of the fattest states in the union, one can only hope their passion for ditching big government is stronger than their passion for ditching moderation in dining habits.

Why would it? The population of Texas is close to 26 million. So what, .35% want secession? If they're so rootin' tootin' mad, let them pack their bags and get the fuck out (hope the door doesn't smack them in the ass on the way out). The other 99.65% of the population shouldn't be forced into something they don't want.

Math like that is as uninteresting to the kind of person who signs such a petition as it is to the kind of person who assumes everyone in Texas thinks and acts like the political figures and popular characters familiar to people outside the state.

The population in Texas is remarkably diverse, with a rich—if mottled—history. Embracing that diversity, respecting it, and generally leaving one another alone about it, are more essential to the principles of Texan culture historically than all this red-state/blue-state silliness.

Obviously, even tens of thousands of signatures on such a petition is ultimately meaningless in a state the size of Texas. But it plays into a caricature of Texans as being loud-mouthed, isolationist, narrow-minded, and reactionary, which is why it's so much fun to eat up stories like this on blogs and news sites.

But that's all a relatively recent fashion. This petition and the face of Texas politics in general represents a very vocal, powerful minority that has succeeded in co-opting attitudes of skepticism and individualism popular with Texans in order serve, somewhat ironically, rather narrow interests.

Meanwhile, those who disagree more publicly make up more of the population than is typically acknowledged. The split in this state between Republicans and Democrats is more even than I ever see anyone admit, again because those in power have succeeded in drawing the lines and drafting the rules in favor of a "winner take all" appearance. And those who disagree from the sidelines—the majority, if you look at how many people actually bother to vote—are busy about other things and, as a result, largely ignored.

In other words, most people in Texas either disagree or don't care about the antics that get Texas all its attention in the rest of the nation in the world. Disappointingly, that leaves it to the loud-mouthed minority to speak for everyone. But believe it or not, cooler heads truly do prevail down here, even if most people elsewhere will never see it.

as someone that signed the "investigate that former senator that is now running the MPAA" one. i can tell you exactly what the white house will do. they will say thank you, but this forum is not designed for this purpose, and it clearly states what the purpose of it is. then you will get an e-mail a week from the White House.

so all you Obama hating guys out there will now be updated all the time on the "greatness" they are doing, after you get the form e-mail:

Quote:

Why We Can't Comment Thank you for signing this petition. We appreciate your participation in the We the People platform on WhiteHouse.gov. However, consistent with the We the People Terms of Participation and our responses to similar petitions in the past, the White House declines comment on this petition because it requests a specific law enforcement action